


worth in measure, and a measure in worth (but i’m still bleeding)

by Anonymous



Series: under heaven, we self-destruct [1]
Category: BlazBlue
Genre: (read it whatever way you choose), Blood and Violence, Canonical brainwashing, Character Study, Death Wish, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jin's Insanity, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, PTSD, Platonic Incest, RagJin Secret Santa 2019, Romantic Incest, do you love me the way that i love you?, hurt as comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ragna fails to fix things, and Jin fails to understand. A descent into madness, as told in parts. Non-chronological.
Relationships: Jin Kisaragi & Ragna the Bloodedge (BlazBlue), Jin Kisaragi/Ragna the Bloodedge (BlazBlue)
Series: under heaven, we self-destruct [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188377
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	worth in measure, and a measure in worth (but i’m still bleeding)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akatsu35](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Akatsu35).



> **Prompt:**
> 
> > Prompt 1: Jin makes dinner (home dinner date) but gets angry overhearing Ragna saying that it was horrible, and Ragna needs to fix it.
> 
> > Prompt 2: Romantic, stay at home date, from morning to night
> 
> > Prompt 3: Ragna trying to fix/help a heart broken (super, extremely depressed, & suicidal) Jin (learning that Ragna doesn't love him)

⭑✵⭑

The thing is, Ragna doesn’t know how to fix this, whatever it is, that’s in-between them. Doesn’t know how to say sorry, with a blade at his throat and murder in his eyes, and the uncomfortable feeling of failure and shame that sits low and heavy in his gut.

(Then, again, Jin isn’t helping matters any, is he?)

He calls him brother, soulmate,  _ lover _ , but it’s nothing more than caustic screams and obsessive desire, and Ragna doesn’t understand.  _ Could _ never understand, for all that he insists that he knows best.

( _ Yukianesa _ is poison, but Jin never learned not to drink so deep, and the madness that shines in his lost, broken gaze makes Ragna wonder, sometimes, just where he went wrong.)

⭑✵⭑

_ Skrrt! _

Jin grunts as he falls, letting his forearm take the brunt of the impact. His sword skitters across the floor, tossed aside as if it weighs no more than a feather. Pushing himself up, he looks for his weapon, only to find his eyes narrowing at the sleek, darkened steel of a claymore mere inches from the bridge of his nose.

“Again,” Ragna asserts, his red, red eyes dull and distant. As if he doesn’t care, as if he doesn’t  _ see _ him.

( _ He’s always loved  _ her _ more _ , a soft, stilted scream whispers at the back of his mind.  _ Always, always. _ )

Jin struggles to his feet, far more graceless than his usual gait, only to stumble forward and reach out, fingers crooked and dancing to  _ strangle _ the brother who  _ WILL. NOT. FIGHT _ ! him, and —

The illusion slips through his fingers, wisps of ash and smoke and azure dancing at the edges of his vision, as a cloak of the deepest crimson settles on his shoulders and crushes him with the weight of a world he despises.

⭑✵⭑

“Come on,” Ragna grunts, gruff and awkward and small, as he settles a gloved hand on his head and averts his eyes.

The weight of his warmth — dark and cold and  _ burning  _ — surprises Jin, and he can’t stop the way his eyes widen at the gesture. He cannot even mouth the  _ “Nii-san!” _ that threatens to tumble from his lips before Ragna looks back, catching his eye and stating, clearly and firmly, “Let’s go, already, okay?”

⭑✵⭑

The thing is, Ragna doesn’t know how to fix him, but he’s not the only one that’s all twisted up and wrong.

⭑✵⭑

“Why can’t you just tell me what you need?”

Jin doesn’t answer, beyond the quirk of his lips and the flicker of madness that settles on Ragna like a moth to a flame.

“I don’t need  _ anything _ ,  _ Brother _ ,” he replies, and Ragna sighs, heaving his blade up as he prepares for another pointless battle.

⭑✵⭑

(Jin is always so silent and cold, when it matters.)

⭑✵⭑

It’s funny, Ragna thinks, that for all of Jin’s obsessive nature, he insists that what he wants is platonic. Funny, but, also, really, really sad. Jin doesn’t know what it freaking  _ means _ , to love and be loved, to yearn for and hate and desire so strongly, his knuckles go white with the effort.

(Then, again, neither does Ragna, elder or not.)

⭑✵⭑

“Why are you so desperate to kill me?!” Ragna yells, blade buried millimeters from his younger brother’s cheek and hands fisted into the collar of his shirt, as he crouches over the boy’s shattered form.

Jin’s smile twists, and  _ widens _ , his teeth slick with blood and saliva and peeking out between the gap of his mouth.

“What do you  _ mean _ ,  _ Brother _ ? Can you not hear how my blood  _ sings _ to sink itself into your very  _ soul _ ? Do you not feel the urge to tear me  _ apart _ ?!”

Ragna stills, and he lets Jin’s head drop back to the shattered ground beneath them both.

⭑✵⭑

_ (Why… are you so desperate to  _ die _?) _

⭑✵⭑

Ragna should hate Jin, for all that he’s done over the course of his miserable existence. Should want him dead, gone,  _ missing _ , but something in his very being clenches at the thought of finding his insane slip of a brother in such a state.

He’s always been too sentimental for what he needs to do, but…

⭑✵⭑

(Once upon a time, Jin and Saya were his everything. Then, Saya died, and Jin lost himself, and Ragna found himself alone at last.)

((He hates the feeling, sometimes, but what can he do, at this point?))

⭑✵⭑

“Jin.”

The boy ignores him, hunching further into the crevice he’s buried himself in. his fingers twitch, the longer he stares at them, bending at the joints and creaking with the effort, and blood drip-drip-drips from the tips to drench his shoes and stain the floor with something that doesn’t belong to him.

“Jin?”

A soft voice hums at the edges of his eardrums, something ancient and broken and endless that made his mind ring in the silence, once upon a time, but now brings him a comfort he is unused to. Familiar, in a way that he doesn’t hate, surprisingly enough.

_ “Jin!” _

He wonders, just what that voice is saying now. Unable to pierce the static of his mind, and lift the fog that’s settled over him, like soft spring rain and the distant flurry of winter’s first snowfall.

⭑✵⭑

“!”

A hand falls on his shoulder, and he gasps, startled, as he’s broken from his reverie.

“W-what?” he bites out, through grit teeth that, he realizes, won’t stop clacking together, chipping and chattering and trembling alongside the lines of his arms, the lean of his back.

Ragna raises an eyebrow, though there’s something frustrated and indignant and wild in his gaze, this time. Not distance, not indifference, but Jin can’t see anything beyond the heat of Ragna’s fingers clutching at his shoulders, shifting him, back and forth and back and forth, as if checking for something that’s not there.

Ragna’s mouth is moving, yelling, but Jin can’t hear him over the loud,  _ violent _ shadows that grasp at his throat and slip into his mouth. His world blurs at the edges, a silent song the only thing he feels screaming in his mind, before he knows no more.

⭑✵⭑

When Jin wakes up, it’s to an empty bed and an empty home, with nothing more than a bowl of soup and the scent of his brother to prove it wasn’t all a dream.

⭑✵⭑

Jin wonders, on occasion, what’s happening to him. That he’s losing time, or hallucinating his brother, or hearing voices and feeling the darkness creeping into his limbs like an old friend. In moments of clarity, when there’s nothing grasping at the last shreds of his sanity and seeking out new ways to tear them apart, just between the veil of being awake and being asleep.

Wonders, why he could care less, when, before, the very thought of his dear, precious  _ Nii-san _ drove him to find Ragna, wherever he could be.

⭑✵⭑

(Jin falls asleep to the feeling of leather gloves and gunsmoke dipping into his hair and caressing his jaw, and never believes for one second that maybe, just maybe, they could have been real.)

⭑✵⭑

**Author's Note:**

> I took the liberty of mixing a couple of the prompts together, if you don’t mind. I also ended up including Saya, in some parts of the story, if you want to skip those. 
> 
> The sequence is kind of non-linear and non-chronological, but I swear there’s an overarching plot, somewhere. Please don’t hurt me, I’m new at this. XD


End file.
